


From one father to another

by sabrina_il (marina)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Backstory, Book being Book, Conversations, Gen, Joe trying to pass on some wisdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25559551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/sabrina_il
Summary: They had hung him by the neck shortly after crossing the Dnieper, for some military crime the dreams didn't reveal.He'd been dressed in a French uniform, choking over and over, although the troops were in such disarray by then no one had stayed to verify his death.It didn't take long to find him. The three of them were already in Russia.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 40
Kudos: 362





	From one father to another

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone on twitter was like - what if you wrote tragic Booker content??? and I was like NO I REFUSE which of course means I wrote the damn thing less than 12 hours later.
> 
> But mostly, this fic is my indulgent way to rationalize why Joe was angrier at Book by the end of the movie than anyone else on the team, and I decided that the answer to that is... well. This fic.

They had hung him by the neck shortly after crossing the Dnieper, for some military crime the dreams didn't reveal. 

He'd been dressed in a French uniform, choking over and over, although the troops were in such disarray by then no one had stayed to verify his death. 

It didn't take long to find him, they were already in Russia. Andromache - Anna, now - had had a mad plan about killing the tyrant Napoleon at his most vulnerable, although he fled Moscow before they could accomplish it. There was so much rebuilding to do in the city, they'd planned to stay a while. 

But then, the dreams. 

They found Sebastien barely surviving, in snow-covered woods that the locals had stripped of all useful provisions. He'd survived the hanging and had died every night since, from frostbite. He'd been progressing, slowly, during each day when he was weak but alive, terrified of being found with his uniform, the only thing he had to keep warm, and tortured and executed by enemy soldiers.

 _Where was he going?_ was Yusuf's first thought. Where had this man been running, when the army he served was already in retreat?

The answer came slowly, pouring out of Sebastien in fits and starts over the course of weeks, as he and Nico - now Nikolai - and Andromache found him a place to stay, a hut Andromache and Quynh had built together, a few days' walk from where they found their newest immortal. 

At least it didn't take long to convince him that his immortality was real, and that they were the same as him. He'd died enough times by that point to believe them. 

It was January, they were all exhausted from the war and its aftermath. 

"We could stay here," Nico said, speaking French for Sebastien's benefit. 

They could keep themselves alive in this hut for at least another month. 

"No," Sebastien said. "I can't. I have to go back."

"Back to France?" Andromache asked. "We'll take you there, but there's no sense leaving now."

"We can't die!" Sebastien said, banging his hand against the wooden bench he was sitting on. "We can do anything, go anywhere!"

"So why is it so urgent to go to France?" Nico asked. 

Yusuf smiled at his accent. Of all of them, Nico had the worst grasp of languages, and after he'd not spoken one for a while it took active practice for him to sound like a native. 

"Because my family is there," Sebastien hissed. "They need me." After that confession, it was like he felt unburdened, some of the urgency seeping out of his tired eyes. "Did you really not hide any wine in this house?" he said, despairing. "Have I died in earnest and this is simply the hell I deserve?"

Andromache snorted. 

They managed to convince him to stay for two weeks, just to get his bearings. 

They spent the road back to France getting to know Sebastien le Livre, telling him their stories, listening to his. He'd been a criminal, a forger, a purely accidental soldier. He had a wife and three sons who he'd disgraced, who'd depended on his income, and who were now, he feared, being taken advantage of. His paltry soldier's wage went to his father-in-law, he was certain of it, and his wife and children were getting very little or, perhaps, were even forced to live on the street. 

"You don't understand what kind of man he is," Sebastien said one night, when they sat around a small fire, his head in his hands. "He hates his own daughter for marrying me. He'll find a way to make her penniless, just to watch her and my children suffer. And now I've been declared dead, whatever fears he had of retribution upon my returning to France will vanish. Nothing will stand in his way."

Nico put a hand on his back, for comfort. 

Andromache gave Yusuf a look that he knew to expect from the moment Sebastien had started his explanation.

He gave her a look back to say that he knew. He understood. He didn't need the reminder. 

Sebastien's family lived outside Avignon. Andromache gave Yusuf a deadline - he must convince their new friend to make the right choice by the time they reach Lyon. They have to turn north from there, not south. 

Thankfully, they take their time crossing from Italy to France through the alps, giving Yusuf time to think about what words he can use to explain this, a thing he hasn't spoken of in almost his entire immortal life. 

There's a tavern in Bourgoin-Jallieu, it's small and dirty and barely deserves the name, but it will have to do. They spend the evening drinking, all four of them, and then Nico and Andromache - Nicolas and Andrea, now - retire, leaving Yusuf alone with Sebastien. 

Yusuf had barely been able to touch his drink all night. Perhaps the old memories were coming back, reminding his body of being a different man. 

"Did you know," Yusuf said, finally, after Sebastien shared a joke and they both laughed. He was in good spirits now that he was almost home. "That I was married, when I died for the first time?"

Sebastien's smile faded into a more serious expression, and he took another sip of his wine. 

"You've never told me," Sebastien said, carefully, "but I suppose I assumed that you were. Our friend the priest and the woman too old to remember her life are different, but you were--"

"An accidental soldier," Yusuf fills in. "My family traded all along the Mediterranean coast, and my father had been charged with our business in Jerusalem before I was even born. How did you meet your wife?"

Sebastien looked thrown by the change in topic, but only for a moment. "My mother was her family's servant, since she was a child. By the time I was born, she was in charge of running their house in Lyon, where they lived for most of the year."

"Did you know your father?" Yusuf asked. 

Sebastien looked at his hands, briefly, before looking up again. "Yes. He ran the stables. He died when I was very young."

Yusuf took a deep breath and eyed his drink. No, he wasn't going to drink it. 

"Can I ask," Sebastien said, "what is this? Why all these questions?"

Yusuf wasn't going to insult him by claiming he was just trying to get to know his new friend better. 

"I had two daughters and a son, when I died," Yusuf said. "My wife and I... our families were friends. Her uncle's house was right by ours. Our marriage was expected, but not unwelcome. I thought her a suitable bride, and she felt the same about me. Our marriage was ultimately not a great success, but not a failure either." Yusuf paused, assessing the drink again, before continuing. "I know they talk about Jerusalem differently now, but you have to understand, my entire life the city had been in turmoil. There were wars, conquests, revolts. Still, through all of it, trade continued, money had to flow."

"You mean, before the crusades?" Sebastien asked, looking mildly confused. 

"Yes," Yusuf said, remembering how young this man was, although by years spent mortal he had at least a decade on Yusuf. But he was so... modern. So foreign, like all modern people. And he knew nothing of the history Yusuf had lived through. "Before the crusade. There had been upheaval, some violence, but what happened during the siege... it was unprecedented. Jerusalem had always been a prize mostly for its taxes, its people, its fortified location. But when Nicolo's people came... they slaughtered everyone. Women and children, the elderly, they burned places of worship, it was like they wanted the bones of the city, empty of everything that made it alive." 

Yusuf paused, clearing his throat. He'd only said the next part out loud twice in his long life. And now there would be a third. 

"We should have left," Yusuf said. "My older brother ran the family at that point, and I should have stood up to him. I should have foreseen the disaster looming over us. Instead, by the time we was willing to let us leave it was too late. Every able-bodied man in the city had to take up arms in preparation for the foreign forces advancing on us. Later, after Nico and I stopped killing each other, after we realized what destiny was trying to tell us, I knew I had to find out what had happened to my family."

"Did any of them survive?" Sebastien asked, now looking drawn into Yusuf's story, leaning closer. 

"Yes," Yusuf said, unable to keep a smile from his face. "My wife and children, miraculously. No one from her family, no one from mine, but she had taken the children to the house of a friend, in a different part of the city, like the brilliant woman she was, and they got lucky."

Sebastien leaned back in his seat, relieved. "I'm so glad," he said. "How amazing it must have been, for your children to see you alive, after all that."

"After I found out they were alive," Yusuf said, ignoring Sebastien's words, "I knew I couldn't return to them. It tortured me, the thought of harm coming to them, of them being unprotected, but there was no way to return to my old life. If I returned, I knew I could never bring myself to leave again. But I was no longer human. For the longest time, Nicolo and I had thought we were cursed." Yusuf smiled at the memory. "Punished, each for his own transgressions. How could I bring that back to my wife and children, who had just survived a massacre?"

"So you just... left?" Sebastien asked, with a shocked expression. "You let your family fend for themselves?"

"My wife, who as I said was a very clever and resourceful woman, took herself and the children to Algiers, where the core of my family was based," Yusuf said. "They had to take her in, provide for her. When I found out she was even alive, she was already halfway through her journey. But of course, she'd never met my relatives in Algiers, and they had many ways of disposing of their responsibilities towards her, now that my branch of the family was practically wiped out."

Sebastien leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm beginning to think there's a very specific reason you're telling me this story."

"If Nico had not encouraged me," Yusuf said. "I probably would never have had the courage to follow my family, and find out what fate had in store for them next."

Sebastien looked like he was taking in that information. "So your new lover told you to go see your wife?"

Yusuf couldn't help a chuckle at that. "Nico and I were barely lovers, back then, in part because to him I was still married. He was a puzzle of contradictions, and one of them was that he could not fully accept me into his heart while I had sworn to belong to another."

Sebastien sat quietly for a few moments, letting Yusuf gather his thoughts.

"My relatives in Algiers," Yusuf began again. "Decided that the best thing they could do for my wife - my widow - was to have her re-marry. She was alone, my oldest daughter was not even ten, but my family knew many people in the city and was owed a lot of favors. My wife... I think for the longest time all she'd wanted was her freedom. She lost so many children until we had my son, and finally everyone was satisfied. I think all she wanted after that was to be left alone. I didn't understand it at the time, there was too much resentment, selfishness, anger in me. But it became clear, when I observed her in Algiers."

"What did you do?" Sebastien asked. 

"I knew she'd be content, living on the sufferance of her relatives, she would heal and gather her strengths, the children would get older, and eventually her clever mind would find some way forward. But if she were saddled with a man, a much older man who saw marrying her as a favor to a business partner... I couldn't let that happen." 

Yusuf thought of the next words he had to say and started laughing, quietly. He stopped when he saw Sebastien's wary expression. Right, it was only funny in hindsight, and after you knew the details. 

"Nico and I concocted a plan. He created a distraction, and I managed to sneak into the bedroom of the head of the family at the time, my grandfather's older brother. He'd never seen me of course, but I dressed in rags and lit a candle and convinced him that I was really Yusuf, my soul coming back to beg him never to allow my widow to marry."

Sebastien's face looked incredulous. "Did that actually work?"

"It terrified him," Yusuf said, laughing properly now, at the memory. "Whatever he believed, he refused to sanction a second marriage."

"My god," Sebastien wiped a hand over his face, significantly less amused than Yusuf was. "What did your wife say about all this?"

The words felt like a slap. Had Sebastien still not understood the point of the story?

"In all my 700 years of life," Yusuf said. "I have never regretted not seeing my wife, or speaking to her, or letting my children know I was alive, back then."

Now it was Sebastien's turn to looked shocked. 

"What could I offer them, but lies?" Yusuf asked. "My wife was taken care of, my children would be raised by people who loved them. Their father died, outside the walls of Jerusalem. I was now... something else. As are you."

"Right," Sebastien said. "Forgive me, but you also had your lover. Don't tell me that wasn't a reason to stay away."

Yusuf took a deep breath, thinking about how to get his message across. He'd spoken about this so rarely, he didn't know how to wrap Sebastien's attention to the correct facts. 

"We make decisions, in life," Yusuf said, "not knowing what the consequences will be. Success, or disaster. A sprawling empire, or soldiers dying by the thousands of starvation, cold and disease. Money to make a family wealthy, or a death sentence in a tyrant's army." 

Sebastien's face grew more serious with each word out of Yusuf's mouth. 

"Here, with this," Yusuf continued, "you can know the outcome. I am here to tell you, I have no regrets. And in case you think I simply made myself forget - I've kept tabs on my descendants. I've even allowed myself to help them, occasionally, without revealing myself. But my life ended in the siege of Jerusalem, and I can tell you now that there was no place for me with my family. It would have only ended in disaster. Each year, not going to see my children was harder and harder, and each year I made the right choice."

Yusuf reached across the table, putting his hand on Sebastien's. "Think of how your wife will feel, watching you stay young, while she withers away. It will be a curse, to make her live through it. And how will you explain it, besides? Let her mourn you, and heal, and move on. Find some way to take care of her - we'll all help, of course. Don't let your children experience being the same age as their father. It would drive anyone mad."

Sebastien pulled his hand away. "Is that it? This is what it was all about? You want me to just forget my family and live with the three of you, in this bizarre traveling commune you've established? Without even seeing my own children grow up?"

Yusuf could see now, all was lost. He'd done his best, and Sebastien wasn't even rattled. He wasn't busy thinking about the possibilities, he was adamant that he couldn't stay away from his family. Not even a flicker of hesitation. 

"Will you try to stop me?" Sebastien said, quieter, hesitant. "Is there some divine rule that prevents me from ever seeing them again?"

Yusuf sighed. "There's no rule. And we will support you, Sebastien. You are one of us, forever. Nothing you do could change that." Yusuf drew his hand into his lap. "I was just hoping to spare you the pain and misery I think this decision will bring."

Sebastien got up to his feet, abruptly. "Perhaps tomorrow, I'll be able to see it that way. As a kindness." His face was not angry, exactly, but hurt, and sullen. "For now, I should leave you, before the wine gets the better of me."

He walked out, looking angrier with each step.

Yusuf put his head in his hands, briefly, and took a deep breath. 

Third time he had to tell the tale. He hoped there wouldn't be a fourth.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, whatever backstory you prefer, there is NO WAY Joe wasn't married by 33, being the scion of a merchant family (I mean, all things are possible, but that was super unlikely). I also don't see him as a Fatimid soldier because of how the Fatimid military was organized and how limited his prospects within it would have been versus just working in the family business. I also just really enjoy the idea of Joe being a lifelong resident of Jerusalem rather than a dude who'd just gotten there two minutes before Nico, what can I say. :D


End file.
